Calipari and recruiting ... culling the herd?

It's one of the more distasteful sides of college basketball — a new coach comes on board and starts jettisoning some of the previous regime's players to bring in his own recruits.

In most cases, it takes a year for the process to play itself out. At Kentucky, it may be John Calipari's first order of business.

Kentucky has 11 returning scholarship players, it appears, with three recruits signed in Madisonville's Jon Hood (named Kentucky's Mr. Basketball on Tuesday), Daniel Orton and G.J. Vilarino.

Suffice it to say that Billy Gillispie's staff had plans to whittle the number down to 13, whether it's to make transfer Matt Pilgrim a walk-on or the possibility of Michael Porter (now married with a child on the way) moving on to the rest of his life.

Ah, but what about the recruits that Calipari has on the hook? Four of them have already signed with Memphis, but each of them has an opt-out clause in the case Calipari left to take another job. Presumably, those guys are back on the market.

And there is the case of DeMarcus Cousins and John Wall, two elite-level seniors that are unsigned. Cousins had committed to Memphis and Wall was reportedly leaning that way.

What if any number of those six players wish to join Calipari at Kentucky? And if so, which players are culled from the herd to make room for them?

There are indications this may have been one of the points of negotiations between Calipari and Kentucky officials. It never looks good when a school nudges a player out the door (remember Rick Pitino and Rodrick Rhodes?), but the powers that be at Kentucky seem ready to take a little heat to help Calipari re-stock the roster.

Realistically, only Patrick Patterson, Jodie Meeks and Darius Miller appear certain to be spared the paring knife. Chances are Kentucky will concede to public relations and give next year's seniors (Porter, Kevin Galloway, Ramon Harris and Perry Stevenson) the opportunity to finish out their careers, but all bets are off on the likes of Josh Harrellson and Pilgrim and attitude questions like DeAndre Liggins and A.J. Stewart.

Suffice it to say, some Kentucky fans couldn't care less about the lesser players — the need to get back to the Final Four supersedes any other concerns. That's a shame. After all, these players did commit themselves to Kentucky, a program which wooed and recruited them.

Calipari could bite the bullet and publicly advise the Memphis players to stay with their commitment, but is that really fair to him or the players?

As for Gillispie's other commitments, we'll address those shortly.

Stay tuned ...